January 27, 2019

In my previous two columns before the one last week, “Dr. Politics Redux,” I made the point that if one political party gets most of its votes from one ethnic group, then the logic of clientelism or patronage means that the leaders must disproportionately reward its base.

By virtue of the now familiar Article 106(7) of the Constitution of Guyana, elections are due to be held within three months of the passage of a no-confidence motion in the National Assembly on December 21, 2018, that is, by the end of March.

Contradicting what appears to be the unanimous prevailing view that dual citizenship prohibits a Guyanese from being a member of the National Assembly, Counsel in the case brought by Christopher Ram argues to the contrary.

I often get questions about advice on starting out in music but I usually try to abstain; the path in each case is different, and when one considers the thousands of factors involved, it’s not surprising that the process would itself vary wildly and advice is, therefore, a tangle.

“I don’t think I’m attractive enough.”
“I’m exhausted from looking after the kids.”
“I’m stuck between having a baby and putting it off to pursue my career further.”
Thoughts like these are what make women unconsciously discredit themselves.

I argued in the previous column that the no-confidence vote and the government’s response to it – flouting the very constitution President Granger and his party revere – indicate another chapter in the long-term and persistent ethnic conflict playing out in Guyana.

In a lengthy article, “Countries at the Crossroads 2011: Guyana,” written for “Freedom House” before the general elections of that year, Assistant Professor Joan Mars, of the Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Criminal Justice of the University of Michigan-Flint, said: “Elections are constitutionally due to be held in 2011.

As I get older, I have come to realize, time and again, that we are often oblivious to things of great value in the culture we inhabit, and I have to admit that I didn’t come to this position on my own.

January 13, 2019

Speaking on January 10 after being sworn in for a second six-year term as Venezuela’s President, Nicolás Maduro declared that his country was “a democracy under construction,” that it would “construct twenty first century socialism,” and he pledged to “promote the changes that are needed in Venezuela.”
Although uncompromising, his remarks contained no detail as to how his government intends remedying the food shortages, hyperinflation, deteriorating medical services, crime, and arbitrary decision making that have become the norm for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans.

The Speaker of the National Assembly, Dr. Barton Scotland, having declined to reverse his declaration on December 21, 2018, that the no confidence motion against the Government had been carried on a vote of 33-32 in favour, has shifted the arena of contest to the Court.

I said in a song somewhere once “I’ve been a lot of places, I’ve seen a lot of faces, and now and then a woman smiled at me” and though I didn’t mention it in that song, as I travel about, I’m often asked about my favourite music.